Check if `Any` value is object

Question

I was surprised to find that this condition is always true:

let foo: Any = 4
if let object = foo as? AnyObject {
    print("It's an object.")
    //do something with `object` that requires reference semantics
} else {
    print("It's not an object.")
}

It seems that no matter what type foo was originally, it is converted to an instance of a corresponding class. Is there a reliable way to determine whether or not foo is an object?

Answer 1

UPDATE

The code I have shown below is reported as not working in release build. (Please see Paul Cantrell's comment below.)

Apologies for my "as far as I tested" was too limited.

I'll update this answer when I find some further info about this.

---

I'm not sure we can see this behaviour in the next beta (or GM or Released version...), but this works as you expect in Xcode 8 beta 6.

let foo: Any = 4
if type(of: foo) is AnyClass {
    print("It's an object.")
    let object = foo as AnyObject
    //do something with `object` that requires reference semantics
} else {
    print("It's not an object.") //->It's not an object.
}

class MyClass {}
let bar: Any = MyClass()
if type(of: bar) is AnyClass {
    print("It's an object.") //->It's an object.
    let object = foo as AnyObject
    //do something with `object` that requires reference semantics
} else {
    print("It's not an object.")
}

let baz: Any = Array<AnyObject>()
if type(of: baz) is AnyClass {
    print("It's an object.")
    let object = foo as AnyObject
    //do something with `object` that requires reference semantics
} else {
    print("It's not an object.") //->It's not an object.
}

I cannot check all possible cases, so there may be some edge cases where this does not work. But as far as I tested, this seems to work as expected.